The Suicidal Applebee's Cook

A while back I promised I'd write about the suicidal cook at Applebee's. Well, the time has come for me to share this story with the world...

It was fall in 2008 & a week night. My girlfriend at the time (during the 2 weeks we dated before I broke up with her) were bored so we went to Applebee's. Please note that the town we went to college in is ridiculously small & Applebee's was the only non-fast food, non-ethnic (Mexican or Chinese) restaurant in the whole place. It was also where I worked & wanted to eat cheaply since I was one of the only employees they let eat with a discount off the clock.

Anyway. GF & I were there, talking to the two waitresses still there (who also went to school with us) & the manager. One of the cooks, Tom, who was a known drug dealer/user was also there & had been pacing around the dining room & acting more weird than normal, but I didn't think much of it. Then I saw him run out of the kitchen & go out the side door, quickly followed by my manager, who returned back inside shortly. That was when he informed us that Tom had taken one of the prep knives & sliced his right arm. Tom was freaking out & acting violent in the parking lot, but my manager was already in the process of calling 911. The paramedics eventually arrived & carted Tom to the ER while the rest of us were in shock. All of us, that is, except for the dishwasher: a large black guy nicknamed "Debo" (I'm using his real nickname because seriously....). Debo wasn't upset at all. Instead, he was pissed because he had already cleaned the floors & now had to do it again because of the blood.

On the subject of blood...let's just say there was a lot. As Tom ran by the side stations where the extra sauces, napkins, a some of the computers are located, he trailed and splashed blood. On bottles. On the counter. The carpet. All of it.

Anyway, it turns out he did it because he was so hopped up on drugs & was upset because another cook, a female, had rejected him so he decided that was the best course of action. And to this day, he doesn't have full use of his hand because he had sliced his arm completely to the bone, causing irreparable damage.

That Time I Pressed Assault Charges On A Customer

So the winner of the vote was #3. There is more ridiculousness to come from my present life, as well as the other stories that didn't win.

The date was December 13, 2004. I was 18, in my first semester of community college, & had just gone back to work at the movie theater where I had worked previously. "Blade: Trinity" had come out the day before, & we were quite busy. The way the box-office is set up there, there are two different boxes inside the lobby where the box-office attendants stand, without any kind of glass protection. The girl who had been in the box with me (that's what she said) was off somewhere else & the general manager had taken over her register. This woman came up to my manager to buy herself, her friend, & two kid's tickets to see "Blade: Trinity." I'm going to come right out & say it, but my manager was a complete ass about 97% of the time, on top of being an alcoholic, druggie, & racist. The woman was black, so he wanted to antagonize her some.

He asked if the kid's were hers & she said they weren't. He told her she couldn't buy them tickets, which was true. But he said it in such a way to make her mad. And mad she got. They bickered back & forth for quite a few minutes, all the while I'm standing next to him actually working & selling tickets. Eventually, the woman got so mad that she punched a sign that was in front of his register but she had bad aim & it hit me in the leg instead. She grabbed her posse & they ran, & he ran after them. I laughed about it with the customers who saw it.

Because of the type of town Rocky Mount is, we almost always had police at the theater during the weekend. Well, they became involved in the altercation. It was then we learned her name. Let's just say that her first name was very close to a type of horrible alcohol, her middle name isn't even a word, & her last name is very common. I'll call her Rummy Sascatoon Smith for this story. Anyway, Rummy was arrested. My manager wasn't satisfied with this, so he talks to me about how I was violated & we couldn't stand for this. While I agreed that we needed to prove a point that you can't just act a fool when you don't get your way, I wasn't so keen on the idea of pursuing it further.

He had other plans though, & eventually talked me into pressing assault charges to match his destruction of private property charges he was pressing on her.

However, we find out that our court date is the same day as the first day of classes at the community college. Manager had just re-enrolled there & didn't want to miss, along with me, so he told me that since we pressed the charges that if we didn't show up that it would be like we dropped them. Not so. About a week later I woke up to a cop knocking on my door giving me a subpoena. Two months later, I have to miss class to go to court only to find out that Rummy's lawyer couldn't make it so we got a continuance. A month after that we actually get this shit-show on the road & win.

A few months after that we find out that sweet little Rummy is appealing the judgment. This means we have to go to the county court & have a trial with a jury. I shit you not.

By this point, it's been almost exactly a year since the incident took place. I'm missing class AGAIN only to find out that my case will be heard later in the week. I show up a few days later only to find out that Rummy was withdrawing the appeal & her charges were going on her record.

In total, I missed four days of class just so I could "prove a point" & keep my manager happy. I didn't even sue. There was no reason to try to get money when there wasn't any damage to me. The only damage there was ended up being the sign getting cracked, Rummy's already tarnished record (she had prior embezzlement charges from her career at TJ Maxx), & my attendance record.

I occasionally Google Rummy, just to see what she's up to. She is currently running a beauty school & seems to be doing well.